50 Pfennigs - Leipzig Meier & Weichelt

Meier & Weichelt was a Leipzig-based metalworking and wire goods manufacturer that, like hundreds of German industrial firms, issued its own emergency coinage — Kriegsgeld — when the Imperial government's wartime metal requisitions stripped the Reichsbank's ability to supply sufficient small change. By 1917, nickel and copper were effectively reserved for munitions, pushing private issuers toward zinc-based substitutes. The nickel plating on this piece was a thin concession to the appearance of pre-war coinage, not a material one.

The Hasselmann and Mennies references cataloguing this type document at least four die varieties, of which this is the fourth.